Shipping of goods is required to bring the same to market or to areas of further manufacture. Typically, the goods are placed in cartons and/or placed on pallets to facilitate storage and handling. These goods may be shipped by land, sea or air, as necessary or desired.
Depending on the nature of the goods, requirements may exist for strict temperature control. For example, frozen goods, such as ice cream, must be maintained in a frozen condition. This requires the use of refrigerated shipping vessels. Other food products, such as beer or wine, are not quite as sensitive to temperature. Nevertheless, it may be necessary to maintain the goods at a cooler temperature and, more particularly, to prevent significant temperature swings during long shipments. While refrigerated vessels satisfy this requirement, they do so at great expense.
Alternatively, shippers have occasionally used insulated tarpaulins or the like to cover the goods during shipment to provide some measure of temperature control. Depending upon the makeup of the tarpaulin, it may have less than desirable insulation characteristics. Further, for large shipments, such as in a semi-trailer truck, placing the tarpaulin over the goods may prove quite difficult and cumbersome.
The disclosed subject matter is intended to solve one or more of the problems discussed above in a novel and simple manner.